Linux Mint 17 on Laptop Acer Aspire-E5-571G PART4

• Using Microphone

Run 

$ alsamixer 

Press F6 select sound card...  Set Mic Boost to 20 and disable Auto-Mute M (use arrow buttons)

Check audio device for capture audio from mic, by

$ cat /proc/asound/devices

  1:        : sequencer

  2: [ 0- 8]: digital audio playback

  3: [ 0- 7]: digital audio playback

  4: [ 0- 3]: digital audio playback

  5: [ 0- 0]: hardware dependent

  6: [ 0]   : control

  7: [ 1- 0]: digital audio playback

  8: [ 1- 0]: digital audio capture

  9: [ 1- 0]: hardware dependent

 10: [ 1]   : control

 33:        : timer

Try record for 20 seconds

$ arecord -f cd -D hw:1,0 -d 20 test.wav

It worked for me, I able to hear myself. 

Graphical "Sound Preferences" looks like not handle the device properly. To use mic with graphical apps you probably have to select the capture device manually.